Jonathan stops arbitrary contract cost variation by ministers

 

President Goodluck Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday ordered his ministers to, henceforth, stop their penchant for indiscriminate requests for augmentation or variation of the cost of projects.

He said in a situation where augmentation became inevitable, such cost variation should not exceed 15 per cent of the original cost of the projects.

The President gave the directive during the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The ministers of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, and Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Muhammed, briefed journalists on the outcome of the meeting.

Maku said the President expressed displeasure over situations where the variations being sought by ministers were more than the original costs of the affected projects.

He said Jonathan was of the view that if officials in Ministries, Departments and Agencies did their job well, there would not be any need for variation requests.

The President directed that henceforth, the MDAs must ensure the proper verification of the actual workloads so that the culture of variation would not continue.

He also directed the Bureau of Public Procurement to stop entertaining requests for augmentation of contract sums.

Maku said, “Mr. President gave a directive to all members of council to henceforth not bring any augmentation to council that is beyond 15 per cent of the original cost of the projects.

“The President frowned on a situation in which sometimes augmentation or variations of contracts end up being higher than the original contracts awarded.

“Mr. President believes that if MDAs do their jobs thoroughly through proper planning, and of course, cost evaluation before award, the incidence of half valuation of contracts will be avoided; and so, he gave a directive that henceforth, any MDA that has any variation on a contract that goes beyond 15 per cent should not present it to council unless that variation has the President’s personal approval.

“He also directed the BPP not to entertain any application for valuation of contracts that exceed 15 per cent of the original cost, and he also insisted that ministers and agencies of government must ensure that in giving awards of contract, we verify the actual workload that is expected, that we ensure proper valuation of our projects so that we will not continue with this pattern of variation of contracts that sometimes go so high as 100 per cent of the original contract awarded.

“So, it is expected that all agencies of government, which are in the process of giving awards for contracts, must make sure that they are thorough in the pre-plan stage for those projects and also ensure that the costing is professional to avoid variations that go very high and leave the cost to the government.”

Muhammed said FEC approved his ministry’s memo for the development of second phase of the Guzape District in the FCT at a cost of N22.6bn.

The minister said the development would enable the FCT to accommodate members of the diplomatic community, who were increasing daily.

The contract is for the provision of roads and engineering infrastructure for a new layout and diplomatic area in the district.

He said, “The areas were laid out and allocated in 2005 to meet the aspirations of members of the National Assembly, well-placed Nigerians, diplomatic missions and some members of the general public.

“The projected employment generation opportunity that will emanate from construction activities following the implementation of the project is expected to be in the neighbourhood of 600 employees.”